Bring on the polka dots! The death of the sweaty, crumpled work suit should make men more creative

According to a recent M&S retail report, the suit has had its day. Well good riddance to it, and while you’re bunging them all in a skip you can chuck the stupid tie in as well.

Really, I’m surprised men didn’t knock suits on the head years ago. They’re so boring and unless you’ve got a polyester mix one you can machine wash at home, they’re smelly.

How many men take their suits to the dry cleaners after a week’s worth of wear? Not enough according to the whiff coming from some gentlemen on the underground.

Sorry guys, but crotches get sweaty, as do armpits. Suits are hard work, especially if they’re worn with that matching fiend of the laundry basket, the cotton shirt, which not only has to be washed, but demands proper ironing too. Yawn.

Ok, before you all get in a lather, the Savile Row suit is no doubt still going strong. Men with money who have a suit physique will continue to enjoy having their inside leg measured, and chaps who so desire can suit it and boot it for special occasions (though any invitation that states “lounge suits for gentlemen” would personally have me running for the hills).

I loathe dress codes and my favourite Twitter post this week featured a wedding where a bridesmaid was instructed to wear what she “felt comfortable in” and turned up dressed in a massive dragon costume – excellent work if you ask me.

Apparently it’s the middle of the road suit that has fallen out of favour with the boys, possibly because dress codes at work have relaxed and men are able to be a little bit more creative in the wardrobe department.

I don’t wish the suit to die out completely, but if I never see another ill-fitting, stiff-crotched grey number on a potato shaped bloke on the northern line again, I really wouldn’t mind.

What I do like is a deconstructed suit, for example I like jeans with a pin-stripe jacket and, thanks to a not-quite-dormant David Essex crush from circa 1974, I adore a man in jeans, shirt and a waistcoat, preferably tie-less. I also have a soft spot for corduroy jackets and a bit of Harris tweed, oh and velvet. I once saw that dishy James Norton at the National Portrait Gallery in a midnight blue velvet jacket and came over a bit silly.

But the sad fact is that most men don’t look great in suits, possibly because they can’t afford to have them hand made and/or they don’t have a Bond physique. So it’s great they’ll be offered more chino and bomber jacket choice on the rails and a chance to be more comfortable and experimental at the same time.

My partner (still dapper at 71) has been freelance for almost two decades now. Once upon a time, when he worked on a magazine, he wore a suit and tie every day, and in the mid-Eighties I inherited his black silk Paul Smith number which I wore dripping with diamante brooches hanging off the lapels. Fact, sometimes women look better in suits than men. Not anymore mind: these days if you put me in a suit, I’d look like something out of Toad Hall.

The last thing I want however is the demise of the suit to give men an excuse to resort to jogging bottoms. Honestly I’d rather a badly fitting Jacob Rees- Mogg of a suit than a grown man in a pull up pant. Because unless you’re an international sportsman or skinny fashionista there is nothing more infantilising on a chap than a massive version of the same trousers his mother sent him to nursery school in, “because we don’t want any wee-wee accidents darling”.

Jogging bottoms on male adults, who have no intention of ever going to the gym, is really worrying and I’m noticing it more and more.

The worst of all these are the grey marl versions which show up every stain, guys. I’m all for comfort and I’m a fan of the jegging myself, but unless there are medical reasons for such apparel, I don’t think you can look properly dressed without some kind of structured fly arrangement.

It’ll be interesting to see who is left flying the middle-market suit flag? News readers possibly, especially the ones behind the desks who have to tell us terrible things, but I reckon the sofa chaps could mix it up a bit without frightening the horses.

As for those strange schools who force their sixth formers (even the ones doing art) into suited corporate office drones, put a sock in it. The only potential future they look like they’re being geared up for is a spell on The Apprentice and, really, is that anything to aspire to?

Dress free chaps, wear your shirts floral or T, mix your checks with your spots, have as much fashion fun as the girls do and as far as I’m concerned, if you’ve got the legs for it, the more kilts the better.